Research Paper for Seniors

Things Necessary to do it right:

--8-10 pages long

--must take a side to an arguable topic

--must have a cover sheet

--must have an abstract

--must be written in "5 paragraph paper" form including:

*attention getter

*general to specific

*thesis statement

*must follow your outline

--must have a reference page

--must be in APA format

Order of "stuff" to be turned in:

--Topic:  Choose a manageable topic.  Not too general, not too specific...just right.  After doing some research, you will be able to get an idea of how "big" your topic is

--Outline:  I believe that this is the most important part of the paper.  Do a good job on this and you will make the rest of the paper writing easy. 

In order to do a good job on the outline, you must first get pretty familiar with the direction you are going with your topic.  So, start reading info on your topic.  Get familiar with the research supporting your side of the argument and come up with 3-4 main ideas.

Choose 3-4 main ideas you want to use to support your side of the argument.  These are Roman numerals I-IV.  Then use subpoints "A, B, C, etc." to support each of your main ideas.  You must have at least 2 subpoints of support, but don't have more than 4.  Then,  you will have some points "1., 2., 3." under your subpoints.  Again, you must have at least 2 but not more than 4. 

At this point, your outline may look like this:

I.  main point

A.  subpoint

1.  point to support subpoint

2.  point to support subpoint

B.  subpoint

1.  point to support subpoint

2.  point to support subpoint

C.  subpoint

1.  point to support subpoint

2.  point to support subpoint

3.  point to support subpoint

II.  main point

A.  subpoint

1.  point to support subpoint

2.  point to support subpoint

3.  point to support subpoint

B.  subpoint

1.  point to support subpoint

2.  point to support subpoint

3.  point to support subpoint

C.  subpoint

1.  point to support subpoint

2.  point to support subpoint

III.  main point

A.  subpoint

1.  point to support subpoint

2.  point to support subpoint

B.  subpoint

1.  point to support subpoint

2.  point to support subpoint

3.  point to support subpoint

Count all your points.  In this example there are 31 points.  This means if each point equals a paragraph, you will have 31 paragraphs.  This is about 8 pages worth of paper.  This is what you want.  So, at this point, each point is the topic for each paragraph.  Which means that each point can be developed into a topic sentence for each paragraph.  Which means that you have the topic sentences for every paragraph of the paper and all you have to do is support each topic sentence with your research.

--annotated bibliography

--intro paragraph

--I

--II

--III

--IV

--Etc.

--reference page